If you see a mob with a spear, leather jerkin and sandals, why are you not able to loot that spear, leather jerkin and sandals when you kill it?

And, if you could, in what game could you best do this?

Raph expounds on the highs and lows of WYSIWYG loot. I'm not sure I totally agree though that this can only effectively work in a wordly game, as he seems to imply.

I think bio-linked loot (a term Yivvits coined in the comments thread there) can work in Dikus, if they have a reason to break common loot down into sub-component crafting resources.

I'm thinking of AC2, later SWG, the Disenchanting skill in WoW and the new Jewelcrafting "Prospecting" skill coming to it. All allow items to be broken down into consumable resources others can use in crafting processes.

Granted, I consider neither AC2 nor SWG particularly diku in the EQ/WoW sense of the word. However, WoW Disenchanting is a very useful skill already, as the crafting skill (Enchanting) that uses the result (shards) have as their business the ability to add stats to both crafted and world-dropped items. The profession is so lucrative, most Enchanters do not even bother getting their stuff to disenchant by adventuring. They get it by buying the "junk" people sell on the Auction House.

A strong "crafting" economy is possible in a diku too. But one must assume:

• Most players are NOT there to pick flowers
• A thriving crafting economy can be based on just the few that are, and those that support them.

I often wonder if folks pushing crafter-centric games understand just how small a percentage of gamers actually want to craft. To me, it's great to build a real deep crafting engine. But in this age of obvious easy-to-see paths to revenue and headcount, crafting is a subset of a hunting game, where the percentage of time spent developing crafting should match to the percentage of players expected to bother.

The alternative is to expect fewer players and scale your business to match. There's enough room for both WoW and ATITD. It's just that when convincing folks to invest in your game, they're going to want to know why you're not chasing the big cash. If you ask anyone, they'll say they want a deeply engaging crafting system. If you see the resultant attempts to do so in diku-inspired games, you'll see the complaints that come with it, like "what, I have to actually pay attention while crafting?!" (from EQ2).

Usually in a diku you have a few dedicated crafters, more than that number dedicated to collecting resources and selling in bulk to them, and the rest consuming the end result as part of their equipment set while off killing mobs for the rest of it. 10 people can bang out enough swords to arm a server of thousands in a diku. And that's how it should be because those thousands are the primary reason that diku was inspired.

So in this system, getting a spear from a mob who was holding the spear can mean you either get the uncommon/rare/uber spear, or something you yourself could either break down to a component for crafting, or which can be sold to someone who has that skill.

Easy to say, incredibly tough to get right. I won't say WoW does it perfectly. But again, for the number of people interested in crafting, I think they do a pretty good job.

But I will close with this: the group that can achieve the vision for how UO was supposed to work initially are going to win in my opinion. Combat was deep there for reasons different from "because I killed Boss #12 the 37th time". And they were better. But to try this again is to risk quite a bit when it's so far been proven that strict linearity sells.

I personally doubt either will strip away a significant portion of the WoW accounts.

Players, yes, but these players will do what they did when they jumped ship from UO and EQ too: continue to pay for their account. Maybe a few months thereafter they'll slink back or decide to close the book entirely, but I don't think Blizzard will feel a pinch. I expect them to say what SOE did when DAoC started taking off: "we're happy for the competition. it's brought more folks into the genre and therefore to us". Of course, I also expect them to very soon stop reporting their numbers in a way that is easily disseminated, maybe shut down the /who all command and therefore drive out those folks like WarcraftRealms and PARC who data mine for everything from number of hours played to favorite hair style. Public company after all, gotta protect the perception of the IP.

I, also, actually think Blizzard has more to fear from the fragmentation of the genre itself with the rise of casual-MMOs (yea, they exist), those focusing on today's tween players, and those environments from which strong communities, and then games themselves, have spawned. But that's not something they need chew fingernails on anytime soon.

What do you think? (feel free to comment here or at this F13 thread)

I can appreciate why they say they're delaying it, I just don't know that I buy the reason.

IRVINE, Calif. – Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.

“We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.”

Blizzard began the closed-beta phase of testing on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade earlier this month. The January 2007 release window will allow extra time for current beta testers to participate in the final stages of development and continue providing valuable feedback.

Further information on specific worldwide release dates, pricing, and other details will be announced in the near future.

It's good to hear they want to use that extra time "polishing the game" to get it right. Yet I find it odd they say this now.

This is because "now" is not "today". They decided on this delay at least a few days, if not a few weeks ago. They had to because there's a lot more going on here than releasing some digital data. They have had to already informed their retailers, both online and off, to not expect boxes for their shelves and inventory (and the fact that the expansion was likely a big foot traffic generator). Vivendi probably already alerted stockholders as well. And everyone had to get comfortable with missing Holiday sets in order to make this decision in the first place.

On the one hand, consumer goods and entertainment companies love the holiday gluttony. Regardless of ones religion, buckets of cash are spent in the fourth quarter of the year.

On the other hand, I have long felt that MMORPGs do not need holiday sales to move boxes, and in fact may be hurt by trying. There's simply too much gluttony. Who's got time to deeply invest in a single experience when there's gifts to buy, put together, return, parties to go to and vacation to be had?

This is just a hypothesis of course, but I wonder just how many people who receive an MMORPG for the holidays actually end up playing it. In my opinion, it's a very easy statistic to unearth: the number of box sales versus the number of new account activations, comparing box sales at holidays versus box sales in any other Quarter of the year.

So Blizzard/VUG willingly avoids the holidays. Either they're avoiding the gluttony, have so many pre-orders they don't need retail presence in December, or figure the rise in Gift Card gift-giving for the holidays will translated into January sales of boxes anyway.

We've added a new icon on your action bar, next to your Social button. This will open a window that prompts you to indicate whether you want to start a group or join one that's already in the process of being assembled. Depending on your selection, either the "Looking for Group" or the "Looking for More" interface appears next. Both interfaces have tabs at the bottom that let you easily switch between the two. The Looking for Group interface allows individual players to be added to a queue of other eligible players looking for a group and matches them up based on preferences they have set. The Looking for More option allows for a group to search out additional members to complete a group.  

And here's their description of the function. 

Looking for Group Interface

The Looking for Group interface contains several dropdown menus that let you search for a number of groups at the same time. Each dropdown menu contains category options that indicate the type of group you're looking for, and each category option provides a different list of secondary options.

Selecting Dungeon

• in the first dropdown menu will offer a list of level-appropriate dungeons in the second dropdown menu. Selecting Raid
• in the first dropdown menu will offer a list of level-appropriate raids in the second drop-down menu. Selecting Quest
• in the first dropdown menu will offer a list of quests that are active in your quest log in the second dropdown menu. Selecting Zone
• in the first dropdown menu will offer a list of level-appropriate zones in the second dropdown menu. Selecting Battleground
• in the first dropdown menu will offer a list of all level-appropriate battlegrounds in the second dropdown menu. So, using the interface, you can

for example look for a group in Stratholme, a quest partner for a specific quest, and an Arathi Basin group all at the same time, with the option to auto-join the first group that becomes available. The auto-join option can be toggled off, should you wish to manually search for and accept invitations

We've seen LFG tools before. This one seems to be the most robust, except that players can't enter their own comments. At this stage in the life of the game though, the more important question is whether people will use it.

When I quit last November, it wasn't out of disgust or anything like that. I just reached what I thought was the threshold of what I could invest into WoW. As such, there were a few things I relegated to the realm of the impossible-for-me.

Ragnaros

About a month prior to quiting, I didn't think I'd ever even hit Molten Core, much less the last mob in it. Now, almost a year later, and the rest the guild and alliance having practiced and geared up while I was away, most of MC is a veritable cake-walk. When I left we were just up to Garr (the fourth mob in, depending on how one clears them), and that was a multi-hour achievement by itself.

Lesson #1: The more dedicated a group becomes, the less time it takes to do something, the more inclusive the event can be for the time-strapped.

Battlegrounds

I had only had some light PvP fun previously. This go-around I dediced to take a chance. I figured if I was going to get wtfpWned in the Battleground, better to do so with guildies. As it happens, not only was I competitive, in my dated gear nad rusty knowledge, I find the opposing "AI" so compelling I PvP almost 75% of the time now.

Lesson #2: PvP is not just for the 8-hour-a-day crowd who've already got Naxx on farm status.

The Great Masquerade

Back in my days as a wee Mage, I followed a friend to Stormwind Keep for some First Aid training. As we enter the Keep, we see a of players following some guy named Reginald Windsor to the center potium. Some speech ensues and suddenly all heck breaks loose. Dragonkin, players, everyone's going at it, and all labeled ??. I decided to join the fray, but at level 26, I couldn't hit anything. It was one of the coolest sights I had ever seen in an MMOG, which is saying something (to me). I figured it was like awakening the Sleeper in Everquest though: something I'd only ever read about or watch from afar.

Imagine my surprise then when yesterday I actually summoned Windsor myself at the Stormwind gate and marched with him to expose "Lady Prestor" for what she really is. That I was accompanied by one of my oldest friends online (though not in this screenshot) was particularly poignant.

<>Lesson #3: Nothing is impossible with friends.

Reputation Rewards

Factions are another grind. I never thought I'd have the patience and time to bother. But the more I focus on the Battleground Factions (League of Arathor from Arathi Basin and Stormpike Guard from Alterac Valley) and that of Argent Dawn, the more realistic the rewards from Revered and Exalted become. Finding out the best ways to increase Reputation is a game unto itself.

New Predictions

In keeping with my tradition of not knowing myself, not knowing what I'm capable of and continually underestimating the value of friendship, here's some new predictions, just in time for Burning Crusade:

• I'll never like another class as much as the Mage. By and large, this has held very true. The only class that comes close has been Warlock, but I'm already fairly well geared up on my Mage. To repeat all of that and get to the same level would simply take too long, particularly with the pending level cap increase. I'd do it if I didn't love the Mage as much as I do.
• I'll never be anything but a Fire-specced Mage. Generally "Fire-Spec" means some Arcane talents too, but it's the Fire that does the damage. This, too, has held true so far. I love blowing stuff up. It's during those unfortunate encounters like Ragnaros though where I get tempted to go Frost. And in BGs, where I realized just how little survivability I have. But that's why I took up Engineering.
• I'll never hit Naxxramas. This is believable mostly because by the time I've got the gear to survive the encounter, and by the time my guild is interested in bothering to hit this, Burning Crusade will be out and we'll be up for questing to level 70. Even if I go back and play the Warlock, once BC comes out I can't see MC>BWL>Ony>Naxx being anything but a sidebar activity, unless they revamp it totally. Would anyone bother gearing up for a Naxx fight when by level 65 or so the encounter will be negligible?
• I'll never finish Zul'Gurrub nor AQ40. Both believable too, for the same reason as Naxx.

So there you have it. Will I be proving myself wrong yet again? Will Blizzard want to maximize the investment they made in creating this content by revamping it for a level 70 gain? Will I still be playing when they do?

Only time will tell.

So I decided to tip-toe a bit into PvP, specifically Battlegrounds. Oddly enough, being over a year late, I haven't been completely outclassed. And I'm playing what amounts to the least survivable template of a near-one-dimensional class.

Background 

My first foray into Alterac Valley (AV) was akin to my first entry into Molten Core, partly because neither place was a destination I thought I'd ever arrive at. But the similarity ends there. Unlike MC, where eventually you know exactly how the place is going to respond to your actions, no two Battleground fights are ever the same. Sure the NPCs within all respond predictably. But in classic RTS style, you just don't know how the opponent players will.

I've come to Battlegrounds late. Apparently there's a whole bunch of things that have changed about them over time. Most recently Blizzard instituted cross server battlegrounds, where in your particular battle, your team and that of the enemy could be from any number of servers. Cumulatively, the changes of the last year all seem to have improved BGs in the minds of players. Not having lived it though, I've only read accounts.

I like AV. It's probably about the size of a medium outdoor zone like Elwynn Forest or Dun Murogh. And there's lots of side-objectives to try out as well as a few different tech trees. For example, you can make your own NPC Guards more powerful, unlock a fighting force of powerful mounted NPCs, unlock this crazy-huge walking tree thing and so on. The main goal is to defeat the leader of the opposing side, himself a raid-level boss. They're surrounded by guards who, interestly enough, are linked to the number of towers held by the side. For example, if the Alliance destroys the Tower Point tower, the "Tower Point Warmaster" guard despawns.

But it's just not that easy. You never know where the enemy is going to decide to defend. You never know if they're going to take all 40 of their members and assault your base in a zerg, split them between objectives, or whether they have any real coordination at all. AV is all pickup-group, and while there are ways to cheat the system, there's really no way to guarantee 40 people you know well and talk to on voicechat will be in the same AV instance.

And that's the real challenge.

Ability to Learn

• In Raiding, you and your force can get better if you always have the same people together, learning together, being lead together, gearing up together.
• In AV, you can't get that. So typical pickup-group (PUG) dynamics take over.

Typical pickup-group dynamics include no clear leader, constant bickering, no clear objectives people agree on, a complete disillusionment with early failure and wins based sometimes on luck and sometimes on emergent leadership.

Nowhere is that more apparent in the smaller Battleground, Arathi Basin (AB). AB is a capture-the-flag type game. The number of flags you hold each round contributes to number of resources your side collects. It's a simple counter that increases every minute. The first side to reach 2,000 resources is the winner.

Unlike AV, in AB you can arrive as a raid force (15 people max). But most don't, instead arriving with a PUG. And the difference is apparent. I have yet to be in a PUG against a guild where the PUG wins. The entire methodology of the opposing force is different. And they don't even need voicechat to win. They just have to wait for the PUG to descend into uncontrolled chaos as it most often will.

But sometimes it doesn't.

Emergent Leadership 

Sometimes a leader will emerge, early on, and issue orders others follow. There's a few dynamics in play here:

• How the leader emerges: If a braggart swaggers into the /battleground chat channel, they'll get shouted down by other braggerts. However, a truly authoritative figure, someone who carries the Teddy Rooselevent "Big Stick" while walking tall comes in and starts issuing orders, there's a good chance people will listen. This is because:
• The nature of the orders: Do they make sense? Are they properly explained? There's not a lot of things to do in AB. There's only five flags after all, and while all are open for capture, there are better ones to get. This is because of the layout of the zone. It's easier to capture one flag and be able to support two others than it is to capture other flags and defend those.
• The nature of the participants: Are they experienced AB attendees? I find that the newbies and the most experienced are the most apt to listen to good orders. It's those who think they're smarter than they are, or those who just never want to be told what to do, who don't.
• Consistent leadership: A leader who issues orders that make sense only gets the group started. A true leader is constantly watching the map, ordering forces to defend or give up or take. As long as they're not jerks about it, they'll get listened to, because:
• The price of success: If the orders are delivered well and consistently and the results are palpable, people will listen. They need those demonstrable results though. Here I feel an analogy to raid drops. As long as they flow consistently enough, people are motivated to get them. This, and demonstrable success of leadership are Dark Arts though in my mind.

I also see a corrolation between Raid/Guild leaders and Battleground temporary Leaders. Some say leaders are born, not made. Maybe that's so, but I feel there's a bit of leadership in everyone, just waiting for the opportunity to come out. Temporary groups in a game that'll last no more than 20 minutes are great environments in which to try leadership on for size. Even if you entirely flub it, most of those people won't remember you anyway. That's the beauty of cross server battlegrounds.

But even effective leadership can only work with the force they've got at the time. PUG battlegroups are, by nature, at a constant disadvantage as a result. They're always playing together for the first time. I imagine this is just like pickup raid groups. I've never participated in a pickup raid in WoW or anywhere, and based on these battleground experiences, I am even less-inclined to bother.

All of this is well-known of course, the very reason why Guilds are created and sought after. Any consistency makes for a more efficient gaming experience. The best leaders are those that emerge for an occasion and prove to those being lead that following orders is going to get everyone their desired results.

But like I said, it's a Dark Art.

I have some other thoughts.

Yea, supplies may be up. Yea, Blizzard banning 50,000 accounts is pittance against the millions they have. But, demand is still down. I think there's three more reasons for this:

1. WoW is a virgin territory for new farmers, but the amount of buyers has not increased at the same pace as the number of farmers. Maybe that's because the game is easy enough people don't want to cheat. Maybe it's because so many players are new to this genre they don't even yet know how much time-sinky stuff they really want to put up with. Or maybe:
2. The game rules don't compel RMTing because the best stuff most sought can't be bought just with gold (either requires Honor Points or being on a Raid to loot it)
3. Blizzards rather contrarian view to the practice is pervading the business end of the industry. How much can IGE actually grow if the biggest portion of the space in which they operate (not the genre all over, but the diku-inspired Black Market end) adamantly opposes them? WoW is the Wal*mart of the genre. If you're a supplier of something Wal*mart would carry, and Wal*mart decides not to carry it, you're in trouble. They're not the only game in town, but they make and break companies thataren't as diversified. IGE might be in a number of games, but WoW's market is clearly the largest in this subset of the genre. Not tapping into them means not being able to grow as a company beyond the size they are. And a company not growing is a company generally seen as being in trouble.

What do you think?

But I have learned two interesting things about their perception of WoW:

• Expected on-shelf date was November 28th. This means I was right. I love being right.
• Blizzard is only planning to ship 4 million units of Burning Crusade boxes.

Huh?

At last count, WoW had 6.5 million active subscribers across the world. They've lost a lot more than that over time as they keep gaining new players. The expansion is expected out in a bit under three months, and advertising is likely to start soon. For the millions not already in the game, and the millions (maybe) who have, there's millions more who haven't been convinced to play it, and Vivendi has the sort of cash to reach them.

Yet they're only going to sell 4 million units? With a followup not expected for "many months" thereafter?

I understand that expansions generally don't sell through 100% of even current account holders. But they expect almost 40% of their current account holders to not buy it like right-away? At Christmas? When I fully expect not only the expansion but also a Gold version that includes both? Are they serious?!

There's only three reasons I can see them thinking like this:

1. They really expect only 60% of the current account holders to buy it, based on precedent (though there aren't many games to compare to, and none which hit such a wide spectrum of playstyles).
2. They are not planning to launch the expansion in EU, China nor other territories until next year.
3. They are planning to be out of stock in order to gain positive PR from that.

All three are plausible, though I'd bank most heavily on #2.

I firmly believe that they could hit 10 million subscribers with this expansion, as they draw back so many other players to complement those already here. But if #2 is the reason for the lowball distribution, then it may take some time for that 10 million to be reached. 

I'm not one of them.

Having recently landed back upon Azeroth, I've been dabbling with all of the systems in the game. What I have found:

• I'm just not a crafter. In WoW, "crafting" is mostly resource gathering, and I don't enjoy spending what little time I can log in dedicated to collecting resources. I'd rather just buy them.
• Questing. A lot of revamps have happened since I left last November, and a number of new quests have been added. Good stuff always.
• I don't mind the occasional raid. To me, "raid" is an event where a group of people come together to dungeon crawl through content they already know in order to get a rare drop within or at the end. There's zones I haven't seen the end of, and getting new gear is always good. But even better, it's not the only way to get new gear.
• Faction Grinding. I find it carthatic after a fashion. As long as I switch factions every so often, I don't get bored with it. The mobs in Silithus are very different from those in the Plaguelands in both how they fight and what they drop. Bouncing back and forth in the way only Mages can do (with teleporting and strategic Hearthstoning), it is fun. Plus, with all of the changes they've made, I can grind faction a number of ways, from hunting to turn-ins to crafting writs to repeatable quests. Finding the right combination of faction, mob, drop and quest is a game unto itself.
• Battlegrounds. Whoa. I did not realize how much I would enjoy these. I'm not very good, and my gear was the sort of equipment people were outgrowing in 2005, but I've been able to hold my own. I find I'm most effective as a closer, anti-caster sniper and of course, AOEer. I'm also pretty good as a spotter: run in, poly, wind up a big blast while others come along, boom. If I eventually climb the Honor Point ladder to get better gear, all the better. But I won't focus exclusively on this because that'd be as bad for me as focusing just on Raiding.
• Commerce. I really don't care. I'm making enough money from the other stuff to just go buy what I need when I want it and occasionally upgrade a piece of gear through the Auction House. I currently have my eye on a Sageblade, which is crafted but currently almost the price of an Epic mount (which I don't care about). That'd work with my +Damage Fire-spec Mage rather nicely, especially since I've had the materials for a great Enchantment since before I quit last time. +30 Damage from the Enchant on top of the +20 Damage from the sword, and the additional add of the -10% resistance debuff to my target(s). A nice complement to what I already have in my off hand.

Right now, I'm in the mode where whatever improvement comes along, I'll take. There are some who look to build sets or focus on a specific encounter to get a drop, and I'm always willing to help. I just prefer, in general, to bounce between many activities to prevent the boredom of any one activity impacting my enjoyment of an experience in general.

It's alway nice to be reminded by some of the diversity a diku can offer.

Personally, this pisses me off enough for me to use the word "pisses" in a sentence. Doesn't anyone read and respect an NDA for an event to which they were a hand-picked invitee?

I ask that rhetorically of course, since in this age, you only need one person to leak, and there's no way to invite thousands of people you implicitly trust. It's just a shame. 

Now, that's not to say the information coming out about Burning Crusade is bad. It all actually makes for a great read. And, there's a chance this is all just a ploy very much in line with the traditional strategy for marketing to hardcore. The anti-establishment stick-it-to-the-man sorta folks Blizzard already successfully marks to just loves to feel like they're getting info through back channels and the underground.

But I still feel it's a shame all people can't be expected to abide by even vague contracts they make. It might be fun to read what they say, but it just gets harder to hold them in any regard as people.