TwitterSomething Wasn’t Right
I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t to thrilled with WoW (”World Of Warcraft”:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/) soon after I finally joined up in the beta. I’ve been so focused on playing FFXI that WoW didn’t even register in my mind as a viable game. Seriously, look at this blog? Ever since I started playing FFXI, it’s clearly dominating my life at the moment. Not that I’m proud of that fact or anything, I’m just stating it as such.
There were quite a few things I didn’t like about WoW at first. Having to choose your character’s life fate right up front didn’t appeal to me. I’m use to being able to switch jobs (classes) in FFXI whenever I get bored with being a mage or warrior type. Right now I’m leveling up a Bard job which I really enjoy. Before that the same character has been a White Mage, Black Mage, Summoner, and Beastmaster all with one character. I like that type of variety and the choice to just switch at my hearts content without starting from scratch.
Starting out in WoW is really just running around doing silly quests, killing 6 boars for meat and then returning them to the requester, rinse and repeat. Other simpleton quests include delivering mail and then again and again. After concluding these “icebreaker” quests, comes the frustration of having to combat level 6~9 Trolls or Kobolds in an agro infested cave or mine. At level 4~6, completing these quests solo is almost impossible. Finding a group isn’t that simple in WoW, the interface for grouping isn’t nearly as convenient or polished as it is in FFXI. Grouping at low levels can be a disaster as new players don’t understand team concepts or god forbid, haven’t learned how to play their characters yet. FFXI doesn’t require grouping until at least level 10 and to make it worth any while you need a full party of 6 people. Having one or two new players isn’t going to hurt you at that level in FFXI.
While exploring the wonderful world that Blizzard has created in WoW I was having a hard time meeting people that were friendly. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m not communicating correctly? I’m involved in several guilds within FFXI so I think I had a pretty reasonable idea of what I needed to do in order to get approval from other gamers. Each time I’d /wave or /thank someone I’d get no response. Standing at the entrance to several of the low level murderous caves asking for groups I’d be left in the cold Dun Morogh winter.
Why was I even playing this game anymore? Having been selected as beta tester I felt it was my duty to play and submit my /bugs and /suggests, which I’ve done frequently.
All this changed last night when I finally found my niche. One of the message boards I read often has a few new Mac WoW beta testers that wanted to start a guild. I’m all for that! Last night the guild was finally created and now I think that my enjoyment of WoW will increase ten fold.
What will happen to FFXI? I have no idea… And the blog? It could get ugly. Or maybe now is the time to start blogging about my unique opportunity to play the most anticipated MMOG this year. Hmmm.
May 21st, 2004
Sony has unleashed the details on their latest gaming creation, the PSP handheld at the gaming industry convention E3.
