Planning for war

Anyway, with predictions that we are approaching the last phase of the Pandaren campaign, I've started planning for 5.4. I've got the best gear I can get for now: ilvl 530 for the most part, as well as the ilvl 600 cloak from the legendary quest-line, and I'm not going to win any heroic gear from the Throne of Thunder in the next month (my guild is 1/12 normal. I'm 6/12 normal, due to links with other guilds, but there isn't a hope of getting much further before the storm breaks), so I'm going to save enough valor points so that I'm capped for 5.4, in the hopes that I'll have something to spend them on.

As for raiding in 5.4, my plan is to take advantage of the Flexible Raid feature, which allows you to take anywhere from 10 to 25 raiders into a raid whose difficulty level that is between LFR and Normal, and whose loot is also between those two levels. I predict that this will replace LFR raiding for our guildies. Certainly, as soon as the new 5.4 raids open, we plan to take a look at the first fight in Normal mode (since it opens first), but I'm not expecting any kills! FR raiding will then open up and I hope we'll get a kill early in the first month, if not in the first week of the raid. There is absolutely no point in me personally doing LFR at all, as the gear rewards are mostly 2 levels below what I already have (I assume the upgrade vendor is going away on his holidays again).

I've started buying windwool cloth to stockpile. We'll need a lot of it when the new tailoring patterns drop. I've stopped making Imperial Silk. It's already useless. Instead, I'm saving my cloth to make Celestial Cloth as soon as I get the pattern, and then to make the ilvl 553 caster belt (3 weeks worth of cloth) and leggings (4 weeks more).

With the arrival of new raids comes the need for new gems and enchantments. I'll certainly be buying up tons of enchanting materials this month, and any cheap gems I see at auction - I believe there are no epic gems coming in 5.4.

The new zone, the Timeless Isle, has a new currency, the Timeless Coin. 5000 of these are needed for the next leg of the legendary quest-line, so I expect to spend a lot of time there!

The coming storm

The Darkspear trolls under Vol'Jin are revolting. No, seriously, they are. Up in the Barrens, they're openly colluding with the Alliance to disrupt Garrosh's preparations for the coming war, paying adventurers like me to go and kill orcs.

That's par for the course from trolls, I suppose. They can't even get along with each other, never mind with other species. Never trust a troll. Do you remember when the Zandalari trolls were the good guys? I even became exalted with them, back in the day. They helped us in Zul'Drak against the Drakkari, as we helped them in Zul Gurub against the Gurubashi. Now the Zandalari try to kill me on sight.

You can never trust a troll. Garrosh is learning this painful lesson, as Vol'Jin backstabs him.

Well, I'm happy to help Vol'Jin become a thorn in Garrosh's side, but I don't understand why he wants to become one. Is he hoping to break away from the Horde and join the rest of the Trolls in a third faction? According to our alliance spies, he claims to be unhappy with "Garrosh playing god? Making monsters? Dis ain't what da horde is about!". Well, I'd be tempted to believe him if he wasn't in the same horde as the undead. Playing god and making monsters is exactly what the Forsaken are about. Has he forgotten about Sylvanas Windrunner? If he was really unhappy about that, he should have left the horde long ago.

I can also sympathise with the goblins' unhappiness over their treatment by the orcs, especially the Kor'kron Guard. But I can't see why they would want to overthrow Garrosh. The Kor'kron Guard are just behaving the way all orcs do. Removing Garrosh won't change the nature of the orcs, any more than overthrowing Gallywix would change the nature of goblins.

And, orc adventurers, why are you planning on betraying your own warchief? He has expanded your territory, given the night-elves an almighty kicking, blown Theramore to smithereens, and generally made Kalimdor a horde-dominated continent. He's everything a proper orc could want in a warchief, unlike Thrall who wanted to make peace with the alliance and made friends with Jaina Proudmoore. He wanted to be a Peacechief. Garrosh showed how real orcs deal with Jaina Proudmoore. What real orc wants peace? Maybe that's good for the tauren, but a real orc lives for war. You should be joining the Kor'kron Guard to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. And if the trolls and the goblins don't like it, crush them too. Instead you're planning to betray and kill the best Warchief you've ever had!

Never trust an orc.

Anyway, I'm glad the idiots in the horde are breaking themselves apart, for Garrosh is a real danger to the Alliance, and King Varian Wrynn's only response to Garrosh's attacks have been to turn the other cheek. Even when Jaina kicks the blood-elves out of the Kirin Tor, for helping Garrosh steal the divine bell, that wimp complains that he could have got the Sin'dorei to join the alliance, if only she'd done nothing. Yeah, right.

Meantime Jana has been using a scrying technique known as "datamining" to determine that Garrosh may be planning on blowing up Stormwind Harbour. I wonder if that will wake Varian from his slumber.

Activision/Vivendi

Are you cheered by the news that Activision-Blizzard is separating itself from cash-strapped Vivendi? It probably is good news. But I'd just like to point out one thing, by way of warning.

Blizzard released World of Warcraft while owned by Vivendi, and all through their time with Vivendi, their subscriber numbers climbed. Vanilla, BC and WotLK were developed under Vivendi's stewardship. In July 2008, Activision merged with Vivendi Games, and Blizzard was moved out of Vivendi's stewardship, and into Activision's. Soon after, Ghostcrawler replaced Tigole, and the decline of WoW subscriber numbers began.

Of course, all of this could be a coincidence. It probably is. But I can't say that it certainly is. Who knows what new pressures Activision put on Blizzard? What is certain is that Blizzard's time with Vivendi was good for Blizzard, and Blizzard's time with Activision has not been so good.

Ted Atchley's counter-hypothesis

Two months ago, Gevlon wrote a short series of articles on wargaming.net, the makers of World of Tanks, where he discussed the possibility that they were hoodwinking their customers. Part of his reasons for writing the series was that two earlier articles had sparked a lot of page views, and Gevlon felt that those articles resonated with wargaming.net's customers, which accounted for their popularity.

Ted Atchley had an alternative theory: the two articles got a lot of hits because people were googling for cheat codes for world of tanks.

I created a page to test Ted Atchley's counter-hypothesis, and promised to report back on the results. Well, it's now two months since I published that page, and since then it has become the 7th most-read article in these diaries (it doesn't take a lot of hits to get to 7th best here, though!)

It's interesting to review my top 10 articles, and of course I'll be doing it in reverse order.

10. My old friends, Spidersilk Boots and Drape
9. Sunsong Ranch
Those two were part of Cold's Blogging Carnival, which I think accounts for their popularity.
8. Golden Lotus Notes - this was a guide to what to do after reaching level 90 in Pandaria, which was popular a few months ago when most people were just dinging 90. Not so much now.
7. The aforementioned World of Tanks Cheat Codes. I think this provides some support for Ted's theory.

So what was more popular than this? Well, the next most popular post in the Dàchéng Diaries is:
6. Toys and Games, an argument with Tobold over the nature of virtual worlds. Its high hit-count, I think, stems from Tobold linking to it.
5. Problems with Commenting on Wordpress Sites. This one falls into the problem-solving category. Some people are having comments that they make on Wordpress sites fall into a black hole, and this article presents a possible solution.
4. A Draenei in the Deadmines. Published two days after the number 3 contender, I think this one benefits from the afterglow effect. People coming to read the number 3 article also read this.
3. Gevlon the Bully. For a long time this polemic aimed at the lying, cheating, sociopathic bully of Azeroth was my number one article. To use Gevlon's words, it "resonated with something my readers found themselves". More likely, it benefited from crosslinking from the JMTC forums, and then reddit. It still is the article with the most comments.
What could beat "Gevlon the Bully" out of top place? Two rather more prosaic articles:
2. Black Lion Trading Company, which is a short article on what to do in GW2 if you get a particular error message. Like the "Problems commenting on Wordpress" article, it falls into the problem-solving category
1. Doomsday is a comin' which is an article on the shenanigans Garrosh Hellscream was getting up to a while back. Now it's certainly an entertaining read, but so are many of my articles that have only a tenth as many hits as this one. So what is driving people to this page? I can't find any search terms or back links that might explain it (the main search terms are ones driving people to entries 2 and 7), so I'm pretty much bewildered by this one With my tin-foil hat on, the only thing I can think of is a reference in the first sentence of the fourth paragraph to a munition that can destroy stuff massively. Which of course does not show up as a search term, according to Google. Maybe my Iranian readers aren't really from Iran.

Shield Wall? We don't need no stinking shields now.

Azuriel just pointed out that in the 5.4 PTR

Shield Wall no longer requires a shield. If the Warrior does not have a shield equipped, it will show a visual of an equipped shield.

What madness is this? Azuriel is unaccountably happy about this, and the same change to Spell Reflection, on the basis that it makes playing a warrior easier, but surely without a shield, the warrior should not be able to create a shield wall? This makes play easier for warriors at the expense of making it illogical and unimmersive for everyone. I had thought that Blizzard was slowly coming to the conclusion that forever making WoW "more accessible" isn't the same as making it better. Perhaps I should rethink that thought.

Free2Play need not be Pay2Win

Tobold has been on a roller-coaster ride this last few days, from when he believed that "Pay2Win is not an issue", couldn't even admit to knowing what "Pay2Win" meant, and claimed not to know a single Pay2Win game, to his later hyperbolic claim that "Everything is Pay2Win".

This latter claim is based on the idea that Free2Play games must monetize by selling stuff in an item shop, and that in order to sell them, they must address somebody's idea of winning. So, for instance, if I am a hat collector in a particular game, then I am likely to buy hats that are sold in the item store, because otherwise I won't be able to make a complete collection. In other words, it appeals to my personal idea of winning in this particular game, and if it didn't, I wouldn't buy it.

I have two observations to make:

Firstly, people buy fluff items for the fun of it. We don't need to win to have fun. For instance, in WoW, Some people like to use Leyara's Locket, or Noggenfogger Elixir just for the fun of it. I dare say that even if these items were only available in a cash store, there would still be takers, just for the fun of it. Even people who weren't pet collectors bought the pandaren monk, just for the fun of it. This is an important point, as we will see later.

Secondly, I agree with the main thrust of Tobold's argument: in-game items sold in the cash store are usually bought to improve your odds of winning. That's why I've always argued against them. They are not fair, and they are not perceived to be fair. When people talk of "fluff" items, or "cosmetic" items, they often simply mean "Items that don't impact the competitive game that I'm playing, such as boss-killing". The Pandaren Monk and the Sparkly Pony did not impact on the raiders. But they did impact on mount and pet collectors. For them, these were not cosmetic items. When the Sword of a Thousand Truths goes on sale in the same real-money item shop, raiders can't really complain if they ignored the earlier complaints of the pet and mount collectors.

First they came for the pet-collectors,
And I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a pet-collector
...
Okay, that rather over-dramatizes the situation. But, it doesn't have to be that way, in Free2Play games. There are ways of monetizing these games other than just selling in-game items for real money.

Before I get to what these ways might be, first I want to talk about the nature of Pay2Win. Everybody here already knows that it doesn't mean that I pay some cash to a game company, and they display a "You win" screen. It really means "Pay for a competitive advantage". I think we're all agreed on that. If not, just read "Pay for a competitive advantage" anywhere that I wrote Pay2Win.

That raises the important point of competition. If everyone wins, nobody wins. If everybody must pay for the same competitive advantage, it confers no advantage. That's why I don't think anybody seriously includes subscription games in the list of pay2win games. Everybody playing the game must make that payment, so no  player is advantaged by it (and non-players aren't in the competition). Also, it must be obvious who is winning. There should be a clear way to calculate it. For instance in soccer, goals scored less goals conceded tells you who is winning a particular game; games won less games lost tells you who is winning a particular league, and so on. Leagues formalize this by awarding league points for a win, a draw or a loss. Similarly in Azeroth, it's pretty easy to tell who is winning the gear race. For instance, on my realm, I'm currently being beaten by 200 or so well-geared adventurers. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though, and it isn't so easy to agree on a transmogrification winner. That's also why portraiture is not an Olympic sport.

I'm writing this article to remind people that there are ways to monetize Free2Play games that are not Pay2Win. I'm not promoting particular ways of doing so. But as an aid to your creative juices, here are some examples. If you think any one of them is a bad example, I will readily agree with you. If you think any one of them is actually a Pay2Win item, I withdraw it. My point is simply to try to get people to think of ways of monetizing Free2Play games without making them seem unfair.

On to examples.
When I open my browser, it displays my home page, which is Google. How does Google monetise their product? By showing you adverts. Okay, I wouldn't be fond of this solution, as it might not be good for immersion, but it certainly isn't a Pay2Win solution.

In World of Tanks, I pay for garage slots and for barracks with real money, so I can keep more of my  tanks and crew. Otherwise when I want a new tank, I have to scrap an existing tank and crew. In Star Trek Online, I use real money to buy character slots. Rift now sells bag slots. You may say that this does confer a slight competitive advantage, but it is so slight that most people would not perceive it to be unfair. If you do, I withdraw it.

Fun items:
I can imagine selling armour dyes and transmogrification services for real money.
Hairstyles, tattoos, skin and hair dyes, body shaping (such as the items I mentioned earlier).
Dance Studio!

Content:
WoW already sells content, on top of its subscription. You couldn't get to outland before you bought the Burning Crusade expansion pack. Today, you can't get to Pandaria without paying for the content. LOTRO does this  too, and it's a great way to monetize the actual reason we play these games. In a Free2Play game, I would happily pay for access to zones (including dungeons and raids).

My examples may be poor, and I happily withdraw them all. But the point is to free your mind. Tell me what you would pay for that you don't think is Pay2Win. Think different.

Quote of the year!

Tobold is at his usual tricks, raising straw man arguments so he can demolish them. His latest strawman is one he's very fond of: 'stupid "all Free2Play is evil" ranting'. Of course, there's nobody saying that Free2Play is evil. But Free2Play is really a proxy term for what is dear to rich-but-time-poor Tobold's heart: Pay2Win. But when I commented that Pay2Win is the issue, not Free2Play, Tobold replied with this astonishing response:

"Pay2Win is not an issue"

I am dumbfounded! The sad thing is, he really believes it. The internet is chock full of discussion and complaints about Pay2Win games, but Tobold has his blinkers on, and doesn't think it's an issue at all. Instead, he tries to muddy the waters by pretending that nobody agrees on what it even means, exactly.

Anyway, Tobold did not choose to answer my substantive point which was that in a game of skill, if you can improve your chance of winning by opening your cheque-book rather than by improving your skill, it rather removes the point of the game.

Now you may make the point that not all games are games of skill, and I won't disagree with you. Some are games of exploration, some are games of collecting, and so on. But where a game is a game of skill, what's the point in paying to win it (or paying for a precursor to it)? It doesn't improve your skill in the slightest.

And I'm not against somebody writing cheques to pay for training (such as professional athletes do), because ultimately, the trainer is simply helping you to develop your skill to its full potential.