Is anybody there? Does anybody care?
...does anybody see what I see? Goes the musical question of 1776. Well, in this case, I am going to grouse about my gaming experiences mostly, my recent health update, and not much else specifically. Most of it behind the cut for it is the usual blogorrhea that has no bearing on anything, anywhere in any way other than just ranting and whining.
So, before I do that - I'll mention that I did win tickets to the Fathom Events presentation of Shatner's World (link opens new window). It's on April 24 at 730pm your local time in most local theatres (Cinemark in my case). The link can help you find a local theatre listing and buy tickets. Bill is a very entertaining and multi-faceted man, so much so I'm surprised he's not been nicknamed "Diamond" Bill by now. Well, anyway, this is the good news and recommendation for fun I have for my readers.
Online gaming, and video games in general, have a singular purpose: entertainment. If they were strictly effort and struggle, torture, dullness, doldrums, boredom, delirious tedium, painful interaction with incredibly stupid people who can't staple 2 pieces of paper together without causing a visit to the ER or listening to a single 2-word request from you without getting clearence from 2 superiors to carry it out, with copies filed in triplicate, these things would be considered work. But indeed this is EXACTLY how many games operate - especially if you analyze the "quests" which MMORPGs require you perform to complete in order to get some coveted item, often just a minor thing you'll trash in another 5 minutes once you complete the next quest, make the next level, beat the next boss, win the next roll, etc. It's a law of extremely diminishing rewards - and indeed inside the game resembles more and more the day-to-day living conditions outside the game.
I think some of what's to blame for the lack of creativity in making these quests better/more entertaining is the sheer number needed to make content in the game, and the office environment from which they are dreamed up. Eventually, what goes into making these quests goes INTO making these quests! It's high time Blizzard (and other companies) started looking elsewhere for the creative input toward game progression, story arc, and player involvement and feeling of participation and enthusiasm for continued play of the MMORPG. The current paradigm of making inside the game resemble the workaday world is not it.
There's also a bottleneck in World of Warcraft's endgame in which your item level matters (yet again), as it is their chief metric as to whether you are capable of being up to the challenge of the endgame bosses. This is proving to be very wrong. There are absolute idiots appearing in the random matchup dungeons and scenarios who are selected from various servers, who come from who knows what guild and who knows what region of the country or world (or even what native language they speak). This makes for quite a chaotic rag-tag dysfunctional group that is set up to fail at the outset, and often is imbalanced at the get-go for healers, tanks and DPS, often DPS heavy and healer light.
If there were some merit-based system akin to the PVP military rank system for the endgame player, perhaps ranking their performance against bosses weighted with various factors such as tiers, wipeouts, their DPS or heal/sec, and so forth, this might help at least match-make like with like and group similar boneheads together so they can all have each other to blame when things go wrong and not (rightfully) single a certain person out. I call this the "We're all bozos on this bus" algorithm. It is my desire for elimination of the "let's vote so-and-so off the island" feature by the replacement of the bozos-on-the-bus algo.
However, I am not yet done finding fault with WoW's endgame. Remember, I talked about a bottleneck, and this decries poor design! At the endgame, it encourages players and excites them to think of their game OPENING UP once they reach the endgame instead of narrowing down to this track, this treadmill, this proscribed course of greater and greater elitism! Especially when the rewards they can earn for their character become fewer, often just the one thing they want, and keep hoping for and missing out on. I keep hearing over guild chat about the one 530 shoulder the tank wants, or the 520 sword the DK wants, and so on... It's not about personal taste or looks or anything else other than numbers now. The iscore. If you don't make the next bigger upgrade number, you've failed at the raid to achieve your objective. Thanks for playing - try again. Just like our slot machines at IGT.
This does mean something. There is a final, spectacular iscore. It doesn't go to infinity. Then you become a farmer, I guess - just farm items, cash, transmog looks out from various bosses because your DPS can ginsu knife most any mob in game like so many carrots.
And then, finally, it starts becoming about personal taste, looks, choice, personality again. Ah, what a game.
Why not forget the horrible months or even years (!) of struggle getting to that ultimate iscore when you can do the transmog looks at level 90 well before any of that is necessary, just by attending the transmog run raids in the first place? Some transmog pieces you can even solo. I got some mounts (blue and green protodrakes) without anybody else's assistance, e.g.
I personally dislike the random dungeoning and scenario runs and apparent need for pvp encounters that some of the legendary cloak and other ultimate iscore gearing will take. For me, I may pass on this whole affair and bide my time looking into planning to get transmog pieces from raids.
Before that however comes the question, who honestly cares (other than myself) what I achieve, look like, or do in this game? Some of what you play an MMORPG for is the social aspect. And I've found my experience in it... oh, you're there. I do get a little acknowledgment, so it would be incorrect to say I'm ignored, but I have a fear that I really believe is real, that unless I could buckle down and get with the program so to speak, get on that endgame track and be one of the boys on that treadmill that is doing this iscore thing, this siege of orgrimmar and throne of thunder and so forth, getting going great guns with the legendary cloak, I'm going to be marginalized - AM marginalized. There's this special guild vault tab for those who raid the siege of orgrimmar which tends to have potions and buff food, things I'd definitely not see need for otherwise. Yet it does delineate a haves-and-has-not with me, so I identify myself as a "gimp hunter" and tend to keep peoples' expectations low.
WoW has ceased being real fun. It's gone to being more real than fun, but without it to fill my hours, I'd be pretty bored. I guess I'd read more... maybe write, which as you can tell would mostly just be complaining pointlessly.
Health: Blood pressure a bit elevated; platelet count low; possible iron deficiency. Taken off Topamax and the triglyceride medication (forget its name; can't spell it well anyways). Had blood sample taken that visit, another scheduled for 6 wks. after I've been on supplements (which I now remember I forgot to pick up).
I've had neuropathy or some numbness that hurts bad, like slamming my fingers in a door jamb, recently. I believe it came from forgetting a dose of Lyrica but may be wrong. I did advise my doctor of that issue. So, blood tests, iron supplements, referral to a nephrologist, and some kidney diet training seminar scheduling.
So, before I do that - I'll mention that I did win tickets to the Fathom Events presentation of Shatner's World (link opens new window). It's on April 24 at 730pm your local time in most local theatres (Cinemark in my case). The link can help you find a local theatre listing and buy tickets. Bill is a very entertaining and multi-faceted man, so much so I'm surprised he's not been nicknamed "Diamond" Bill by now. Well, anyway, this is the good news and recommendation for fun I have for my readers.
Online gaming, and video games in general, have a singular purpose: entertainment. If they were strictly effort and struggle, torture, dullness, doldrums, boredom, delirious tedium, painful interaction with incredibly stupid people who can't staple 2 pieces of paper together without causing a visit to the ER or listening to a single 2-word request from you without getting clearence from 2 superiors to carry it out, with copies filed in triplicate, these things would be considered work. But indeed this is EXACTLY how many games operate - especially if you analyze the "quests" which MMORPGs require you perform to complete in order to get some coveted item, often just a minor thing you'll trash in another 5 minutes once you complete the next quest, make the next level, beat the next boss, win the next roll, etc. It's a law of extremely diminishing rewards - and indeed inside the game resembles more and more the day-to-day living conditions outside the game.
I think some of what's to blame for the lack of creativity in making these quests better/more entertaining is the sheer number needed to make content in the game, and the office environment from which they are dreamed up. Eventually, what goes into making these quests goes INTO making these quests! It's high time Blizzard (and other companies) started looking elsewhere for the creative input toward game progression, story arc, and player involvement and feeling of participation and enthusiasm for continued play of the MMORPG. The current paradigm of making inside the game resemble the workaday world is not it.
There's also a bottleneck in World of Warcraft's endgame in which your item level matters (yet again), as it is their chief metric as to whether you are capable of being up to the challenge of the endgame bosses. This is proving to be very wrong. There are absolute idiots appearing in the random matchup dungeons and scenarios who are selected from various servers, who come from who knows what guild and who knows what region of the country or world (or even what native language they speak). This makes for quite a chaotic rag-tag dysfunctional group that is set up to fail at the outset, and often is imbalanced at the get-go for healers, tanks and DPS, often DPS heavy and healer light.
If there were some merit-based system akin to the PVP military rank system for the endgame player, perhaps ranking their performance against bosses weighted with various factors such as tiers, wipeouts, their DPS or heal/sec, and so forth, this might help at least match-make like with like and group similar boneheads together so they can all have each other to blame when things go wrong and not (rightfully) single a certain person out. I call this the "We're all bozos on this bus" algorithm. It is my desire for elimination of the "let's vote so-and-so off the island" feature by the replacement of the bozos-on-the-bus algo.
However, I am not yet done finding fault with WoW's endgame. Remember, I talked about a bottleneck, and this decries poor design! At the endgame, it encourages players and excites them to think of their game OPENING UP once they reach the endgame instead of narrowing down to this track, this treadmill, this proscribed course of greater and greater elitism! Especially when the rewards they can earn for their character become fewer, often just the one thing they want, and keep hoping for and missing out on. I keep hearing over guild chat about the one 530 shoulder the tank wants, or the 520 sword the DK wants, and so on... It's not about personal taste or looks or anything else other than numbers now. The iscore. If you don't make the next bigger upgrade number, you've failed at the raid to achieve your objective. Thanks for playing - try again. Just like our slot machines at IGT.
This does mean something. There is a final, spectacular iscore. It doesn't go to infinity. Then you become a farmer, I guess - just farm items, cash, transmog looks out from various bosses because your DPS can ginsu knife most any mob in game like so many carrots.
And then, finally, it starts becoming about personal taste, looks, choice, personality again. Ah, what a game.
Why not forget the horrible months or even years (!) of struggle getting to that ultimate iscore when you can do the transmog looks at level 90 well before any of that is necessary, just by attending the transmog run raids in the first place? Some transmog pieces you can even solo. I got some mounts (blue and green protodrakes) without anybody else's assistance, e.g.
I personally dislike the random dungeoning and scenario runs and apparent need for pvp encounters that some of the legendary cloak and other ultimate iscore gearing will take. For me, I may pass on this whole affair and bide my time looking into planning to get transmog pieces from raids.
Before that however comes the question, who honestly cares (other than myself) what I achieve, look like, or do in this game? Some of what you play an MMORPG for is the social aspect. And I've found my experience in it... oh, you're there. I do get a little acknowledgment, so it would be incorrect to say I'm ignored, but I have a fear that I really believe is real, that unless I could buckle down and get with the program so to speak, get on that endgame track and be one of the boys on that treadmill that is doing this iscore thing, this siege of orgrimmar and throne of thunder and so forth, getting going great guns with the legendary cloak, I'm going to be marginalized - AM marginalized. There's this special guild vault tab for those who raid the siege of orgrimmar which tends to have potions and buff food, things I'd definitely not see need for otherwise. Yet it does delineate a haves-and-has-not with me, so I identify myself as a "gimp hunter" and tend to keep peoples' expectations low.
WoW has ceased being real fun. It's gone to being more real than fun, but without it to fill my hours, I'd be pretty bored. I guess I'd read more... maybe write, which as you can tell would mostly just be complaining pointlessly.
Health: Blood pressure a bit elevated; platelet count low; possible iron deficiency. Taken off Topamax and the triglyceride medication (forget its name; can't spell it well anyways). Had blood sample taken that visit, another scheduled for 6 wks. after I've been on supplements (which I now remember I forgot to pick up).
I've had neuropathy or some numbness that hurts bad, like slamming my fingers in a door jamb, recently. I believe it came from forgetting a dose of Lyrica but may be wrong. I did advise my doctor of that issue. So, blood tests, iron supplements, referral to a nephrologist, and some kidney diet training seminar scheduling.